What Sarah Said
by Rointheta
Summary: After the Cybermen and the Daleks have disappeared, Sarah Jane heads out to interview survivors, only to run into a grief-stricken Doctor on his way to the Powell Estate. (Ten x Rose)


**Unbetad**  
><strong><br>**

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><p><strong>WHAT SARAH SAID<strong>

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><p>"Doctor?" Sarah Jane adjusts the strap of her handbag and holds it close to her side whilst jogging after her old friend. "Doctor?" she says to the back of his rumpled suit, one hand on his arm to make him turn around.<p>

He stops, raised shoulders forming a rigid line and the hair at the nape of his neck spilling over his collar. He needs a haircut. A bath and a change of clothes too, from the smell of it. It's not dirty per se, that smell, but stale and with a hint of dust and ashes.

She opens her mouth to say his name again, but thinks better of it and waits for him to turn around once he's ready. The world saw unimaginable destruction today, and knowing him, he was right at the heart of it, battling old foes and painful memories.

When he finally turns around, her jaw drops. It's not the thick scruff over his cheeks or the bags under his eyes that do it. It's the hollow look in his eyes. The utter lack of the Doctorish sparkle she's come to love in several regenerations.

"Oh, no." Her words are breathy and she covers them with her hand, head shaking almost imperceptibly.

"Sarah." The rasp in his voice grates her inside, makes her shudder. He clears his throat, chin held high as though it will distance him from the despair trying to drag him down and pull him under. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here on a job, interviewing survivors. My editor wants the story on her desk as soon as possible. As you can see," she nods at the rubble around them, at the people already cleaning up the mess even though it's barely been a couple of hours since the news broke that the threat was over, "this place was hit by a Cybermen attack. They were, weren't they? Cybermen."

"Yes."

"And… Daleks."

"Yes," he says, and the flex of his arm draws her eyes down. He's tightening his grip around a bag, making the skin drawn over his knuckles white and thin. A lump forms in her throat. It's empty, that bag, hanging uselessly by his side.

"The Powell Estate's only a block away," she hears herself say, then her mouth twists without her permission and she fights back the tears brimming in her eyes.

It softens his demeanor completely, loosens the tension in his shoulders. The bag drops to the dusty ground and he pulls her in for a tight hug.

"Oh, Sarah," he whispers, breath tickling the top of her head, "she's not dead." 

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><p>.<p>

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><p>During their walk to Jackie's flat, he tells Sarah Jane what happened in curt sentences and a detached voice. On her question whether he can get Rose back, he only shakes his head, dry lips pressed together, downturned.<p>

He doesn't unlock the door with his sonic but with a key, which he slips back into his pocket. It hits her that it must be his not Rose's, that he became so entwined with this small family Jackie made him his own key, made him use it like a proper human, and that he's done it so often by now it's second nature.

He lingers outside, fingertips barely touching the door handle.

She casts a glance at his face, meeting a stony mask that sends a tight little pang to her chest and hitches her breathing. He's lost so much already. How much is too much? When will it break him?

She reaches out to touch his arm, to comfort him, but he's already heading into the flat.

To this world, the Tyler women are dead. They'll be assumed victims of the battle, mourned by people who'll never know the truth. People who can't comfort themselves with the fact that Jackie and Rose are alive and well with Mickey and Pete. It feels strange to venture into their quiet, dimly lit flat, every breath, every step, every rustle of clothes an irreverence.

She follows him into a cluttered livingroom where he places the bag on a wooden coffee table covered with magazines and leaflets.

"What can I do to help?"

"A cuppa would be nice," he says, walking up to a bookshelf. "The kitchen is…" He waves behind him.

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><p>.<p>

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><p>Whilst waiting for the electric kettle to heat up water, Sarah Jane puts her large, heavy bag on the counter and leans back, absentmindedly letting her eyes wander over the room. A red-and-black bag lies in front of the washing machine. The kitchen bin is full. A photo album and a stack of photos lie on the small table under the serving hatch, as though Jackie was sorting it when the doorbell rang.<p>

Sarah Jane glances at the Doctor through the hatch. He's busy going through the trinkets on the mantel piece, so she grabs the stack and flips through it.

All are taken in a park on a sunny summer's day. The first one is of Rose and Jackie sitting with their legs criss-cross on a blanket, eating ice cream. The second is of all three of them, probably taken by a friendly stranger. The Doctor is sandwiched between the pair of smiling blondes. Jackie clutches his arm close to herself and he looks so grumpy about it Sarah Jane can't help but smile. But most are of Rose. Rose talking, or people-watching, or lying on her stomach, plaid blanket under her, flipping through a magazine. She's laughing or smiling in all of them, but it does nothing to hide the dark circles under her eyes or the lack of colour in her cheeks. And regardless of whether the Doctor's face is in the picture, he's seen in one way or another. A pinstriped leg stretched out beside Rose's. A hand on her arm or holding hers. A glimpse of wild, brown hair touching her cheek at a closeup of her beaming face.

And Rose touches him too, him and her mother.

Sarah Jane has seen them tired before, knows they're tactile, but this is more than that: a desperate reassurance of being alive and together. What horror they must've gone through before visiting Jackie. What absolute horror.

In the last photo, Doctor and Rose are lying together on the blanket. The sun hangs lower in the sky and his coat is draped over them. From the way their feet stick out from under it, Sarah Jane can tell their legs are entangled. He's awake, staring at the person behind the camera, brow furrowed and finger pressed to his lips, whilst Rose sleeps with her head pillowed on his arm, her hand curled over his right heart.

They lie like lovers.

But they've never indicated that. Not a single kiss or intimate touch in Sarah Jane's presence, just the ease of two people sharing everything.

Maybe that says it all.

She shakes her head, wistful smile on her lips, remembering overheard words of going on alone and the curse of the Time Lords. No. No, he'd never cross that line. Not even for Rose. Especially not for Rose.

A low click signals that the water's done. She has no idea how he likes his tea. On his and Rose's infrequent visits, he always prepares the tea whilst she and Rose chat. Chatted.

Sarah Jane throws him another glance through the hatch. He's still plucking trinkets, now from shelves and tables and window sills, one bauble after the other flying over his shoulder and landing in the open bag with clinks and clanks. She could probably hand him a cup of tar without him noticing.

She returns to the living room with two identically prepared cups of tea and two small bags of crisps. She'd rather see him eat something more substantial but has to draw the line somewhere with regards to the liberties she takes in another's home.

The Doctor doesn't look up when she comes into the room. The dome-shaped metal object in his hand holds his full attention. It doesn't look as though he's breathing.

A wall-clock hanging in the kitchen marks the seconds crawling by. She didn't even hear it earlier, but now the tick-tocking grows louder and louder until it thunders.

Their tea turns tepid and the bags of crisps lie untouched and that's at least a week's worth of scruff on his cheeks and has he eaten even once since Rose got trapped? How long did he spend in the vortex before he had the energy to come back to Earth?

"Very pretty," Sarah Jane says to break the suffocating silence, to bring him back. She pushes the tea cup closer to him with one hand, patting the empty seat next to her with the other. "What is it?"

"Weather divinator." If he noticed her invitation to join her on the sofa, he doesn't let on, only runs his fingers along the trinket.

"I see. How does it work?"

"She always… Wherever we went. She always picked–" He pauses, swallows. "This whole place! Look at it. It's full of, of this," he furrows his brow, gesturing at the room with his empty hand, "_stuff_. All this alien stuff. From the future! Because she always had to bring her mother something. And what for? What could Jackie _possibly_ need all these things for? A weather divinator? In _London_? Rain. I'll guarantee you it'll show rain, rain, and more rain with a side of rain and then extra rain on top of it. But," he says, voice rising into a feminine lilt, "it's so pretty, Doctor! Look how pretty it is.

"Just like this ridiculous thing." He shoves his finger into a decorative bowl full of knick-knacks and pulls out a ring. "A mood ring! A proper mood ring that actually works, unlike all that tripe you buy at human fairs. But what for? If there's anyone who knows what mood she's in, it's Jackie Tyler. And she won't settle on just knowing herself. Oh, no. No, Jackie Tyler needs the whole world to know. I had to use the sonic twice to get all the snot and mascara out of my suit after she cried on my shoulder when Howard dumped her! She needs this," he says, hurling the ring into the bag, "as much as an Ood needs a bloody hair brush!"

He sighs and leans his head back, eyes closed, murmuring something under his breath in Gallifreyan. Then he snaps back to it, moving like a hurricane through the flat, clearing it from evidence of his presence in the lives of Jackie and Rose Tyler.

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><p>.<p>

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><p>"She was a gymnast," he says, holding a small trophy of a girl striking a pose. After he found it, Sarah Jane finally managed to make him sit down to drink and eat. She even poured him a fresh cup of tea and opened the bag of crisps for him. He's yet to touch either. "Did you know?"<p>

"No." She sips her cold tea. "It never came up."

But she does know. Rose, the Doctor, and Mickey took turns telling the story of the Nestene Consciousness the night Sarah Jane invited them home after running into them at Deffry Vale.

"Saved my life with her gymnastics skills," the Doctor says with a ghost of a smile. "First time we met. Or, well... " He jerks his head to the side. "Would be dead if it weren't for her."

They way he says it, in that flat, matter-of-factly voice devoid of the teasing, proud tone it had when she first heard the story, causes her hands to shake so hard she has to put down the cup lest she spills. It clangs against the table and he jolts at the sound.

A heavy sigh leaves him and he stands up. "Anyway…"

"Doctor," she says. "Your tea. And the crisps too."

He dutifully shoves a handful of crisps into his mouth and washes it down with tea and gets back to work. 

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><p>.<p>

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><p>"Ready?"<p>

Sarah Jane whirls around. "Hm? Are you done? What about all the…" She indicates the rest of the place with her hand. "Shouldn't we clear the flat?"

"That's not for me to…" He shakes his head. "There are… relatives. Grandmother. Aunts. Cousins. They'll," he nods quickly, repeatedly, "yep. We should just..." He jerks his head in the direction of the door.

"Of course." She smiles. "Let's me just wash my hands."

He picks up the large red-and-black bag and hoists it onto this free shoulder. "Laundry," he mumbles. "Jackie likes to– Well, she likes feeling needed. But, but alien fabrics. Can't very well…" He sighs. "I'll wait by the door."

He nods again and leaves the kitchen. The photo album still lies on the table. It's the only thing left of him in the entire flat. There's nothing alien about those photos, granted. Nothing alien about the man they depict. It's just a completely normal day in the completely normal life of a completely normal husband and son-in-law. Sarah Jane's stomach tightens. The universe is a cruel cruel thing to keep snatching away everything and everyone he loves.

Before she can think better of it, she gathers the photos and the album and shoves them into her handbag.

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><p>.<p>

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><p>They walk to the courtyard in silence. Around them, people stand in groups, chatting and hugging and crying. A father embraces his daughter, grateful tears streaming down his cheeks, words about thanking God for bringing her home safely streaming from his lips. A mother wailing in the arms of an older woman, distress making her words indistinguishable from one another. Although Jackie's building is intact, others are collapsed. Many must've lost their homes today. Maybe they're out here to meet their families before seeking lodging for the night. Maybe they're just seeking human contact to soften the blow of grief.<p>

These are people she should be talking to. She adjusts the shoulder strap of her bag, examining the survivors with a keen eye to suss out which will be in a state of talking to the press.

As though he can read her mind, the Doctor draws in a deep breath, eyes travelling over their chaotic surroundings, and says, "Interviews?"

"Yes. That was the plan."

"I shouldn't have kept you…" He shakes his head. "She, er, she would've… reminded me. That you were busy."

Sarah Jane touches his arm. "I'm never too busy to help you."

The grieving woman lets out another wail, clinging to her friend as though a hard enough hug will make the hurt go away. The Doctor has no one to hug. Not anymore. No one's hand to hold when he runs into danger. No one to share his grief with.

"And on that note," Sarah Jane says, even though she already knows the answer, "would you like to stay with me for a couple of days? Just materialise in my garden at midnight, hm? I would love to have you."

The corners of his mouth lift in the saddest smile. "No."

"Well, if you change your mind," she squeezes his arm, "my door is always open."

"Yeah." He's quiet for a while, staring into the distance, so she waits patiently for him to share whatever's plaguing him. "She… I never–" He swallows and clears his throat. "I sent her away. Against her wishes, Sarah, without even saying goodbye. And when she came back I was so angry…" His eyes grow distant, face slack with grief. "I yelled at her."

"Oh, Doctor." She moves in for a hug he doesn't reciprocate. His arms hang by his sides, but he leans his chin against her head with a soft hum, so she rubs his back in soothing circles. "She understands."

"Yeah."

"Isn't there some way?" She pulls back but keeps her hands on his upper arms. "Can't you break through?"

He shakes his head, brows tugged together.

"Not even to send a message? Just… Let it slip through the cracks somehow. To say goodbye? Sometimes," she adjusts the lapels of his suit jacket, brushing some dust off, "sometimes we need a proper goodbye. To move on."

His forehead smooths out and his mouth drops open. "Huh," he says so quietly she barely hears it. "Oh." His eyes light up with hope, and for the smallest moment, he almost looks like himself, all energy and childlike wonder. "You are brilliant, you are."

He presses a kiss to her forehead and darts off, leaving her too stunned to do anything but stare after his long limbs making him fly over the rubbled asphalt. The heavy photo album in her bag makes the shoulder strap dig into her shoulder. She opens her mouth to call for him, but he's already rounding a corner and then she hears the TARDIS groaning into dematerialisation. 

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><p>.<p>

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><p>Sarah Jane thinks about him often, wondering how he's doing, whether he's found a new assistant. A new friend. He never swings by to tell her. And she supposes he never will. Still, she sorts the loose photos into the album. Just in case. It's full now. A hundred pages telling the story of how a gruff man in a leather jacket refusing to smile to the camera turned into a man shining with happiness. She knew the story already of course. Mostly because of Mickey. That night when they all stayed at her house, Mickey helped her with the dishes and he was more than willing to share how Rose had helped the Doctor feel alive again after the war. He almost seemed to take comfort in it. As though stating out loud that Rose and the Doctor needed one another in ways Rose and Mickey never would helped him move on.<p>

Remembering that only makes Sarah Jane more worried about the Doctor, and she stuffs the album into a drawer and does her best to forget about it.

After a few weeks, she barely thinks about it anymore and by Christmas, she's forgotten about it completely. That is, until she hears the wheezing of the TARDIS close to midnight. He's clean shaven this time. In a clean suit too. But he looks as haunted as last time. And even more fragile.

He says no when she asks him whether she can get him anything, but accepts without protest the cup of tea she puts in his hands anyway. They sit at the kitchen table in silence, nursing their tea, for such a long moment she eventually gives up hope that he'll say something and breaks the silence herself.

"How have you been?"

"I did it. I said goodbye. She's, er, doing well. Works for Torchwood." He smiles crookedly. "Probably saving the world every day."

"That sounds like her."

"Jackie's pregnant."

"Oh, that's nice. A little sibling. That'll help her, don't you think? A new life, all the joy that brings."

He nods, looking down into his cup.

"And what about you? Have you found someone yet?"

"Nah," he says, nose scrunched up. "I travel alone."

"I see. Is that wise? Don't you think you need someone?"

"What, to stop me?"

She knits her brow. "What?"

He sniffs. "Someone said that to me."

"Well, I suppose they have a point. Or need I remind you of Mr. Finch?"

"No."

"It's not what I meant, though. The life you lead, going through that alone… Who could bear it?"

"Well," he says and empties his cup.

She stands up, smiling warmly at him. "I have something for you. Be back in a tick."

When she holds up the photo album in front of him, he looks at her as though she's torn out the heart of the TARDIS and presented it to him on a platter.

"That's Jackie's. Where did you get that?"

"I took it," Sarah Jane says and lays it down on the table. "Thought I'd give it to you when you were ready."

"I don't need this." He pushes it away from him. "I don't need photos to remember."

"Oh, I know." She pushes back the album until it lies in front of him, and walks around the table to sit by his side. "But, Doctor, there something not even you with your magnificent TIme Lord memory can remember." She opens up the photo album and points first at a photo of his older, miserable self glowering at the person behind the camera, then at a photo of this him sharing a smile with Rose, his face alight with love and joy. "What _you_ looked like."

"This isn't helping, Sarah."

"Mickey told me what you were like after the war. He told me how brusque you were. How sad. But when I met you again, you weren't like that. Why?"

"Why do you think?"

She closes the album again, closes his hands around the edges. "I know no one can fill the Rose-shaped hole in your life, but you can find someone who'll help making it feel less gaping. Just like she helped you after the war. And whenever it feels as though grief is pulling you under, look at these photos. _Really_ look at them and draw strength from how happy she made you. How she, even though you'd suffered unimaginable loss, helped you feel alive again. It will keep you afloat. It will keep you fighting. And it will help you find happiness again."

Sarah Jane steps back and gives him a moment to let her words sink in. The wind is picking up outside, making naked branches brush against the windows. She looks out, up at the cloud-streaked sky, sending out silent a wish for snow. They got ashes last year. Ashes of a burning ship and its burning passengers. She shudders and turns to him to ask him about the Sycorax, but he's slipped away without making a sound.

She opens her mouth to curse at him, but breaks out in a smile instead when she sees the empty table. He took the album with him. 

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><p>.<p>

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><p>Winter pass and she's sure she'll never see him again. But an unusually warm March evening, minutes after she's come back from reporting about the hospital being transported to the moon, he materialises in her garden, leaning against the TARDIS until she comes outside.<p>

"You never got that cuppa," he says, as though it was yesterday and not a year almost to the date since she helped him, Rose, and Mickey at Deffry Vale. "And, well, I was in the neighbourhood."

"The hospital?"

He nods and pushes the door open, letting her inside. Over tea and the largest cinnamon rolls she's ever seen, the Doctor tells her all about his trip to the moon, and about the young doctor who, like him, lost a loved one in the battle of Canary Wharf. And who, like him, was brave, resourceful and brilliant. Who saved the day.

"She sounds perfect," Sarah Jane says.

He shrugs. "Well."

"You didn't invite her? Why not?" She pauses to give him a chance to reply, but he doesn't. "From what you told me, hundreds of lives would've been lost today if not for her. The least you could do is offer to take her on one trip. As thanks. Hm? Just one."

"Suppose… About that album." He swallows. "Thank you. Thank you for… Thank you."

"Has it helped?"

"I hope so." He smiles softly. "I broke a couple of rules. Because of something you said, Sarah."

Despite his smiling face – or maybe because of it – a chill trickles down her spine. "What did you do?"

"Ooh, no need for that face. It was nothing like that. Nothing dangerous. I did something good."

With narrowed eyes, she examines his face but can't find anything that suggests he's gone off the deep end.

"All right." She picks up another utterly delicious cinnamon bun. "Now, where on Earth did you find these monsters?"

He tuts. "Earth? Oh, Sarah. Why do you think I found that on Earth?"

She keeps her trained eye on him whilst he gushes about the little bakery on the little planet Kanelbulle that sells the cinnamon rolls. He looks different than last time she saw him. Lighter. Not quite like himself. Not yet. But he'll get there.

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><p>.<p>

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><p>Unbeknownst to Sarah Jane, in a universe, so so far away, in a seaside Norwegian hotel where the staff speaks excellent English but with an accent that makes everything sound much too cheery for such an awful day, a mother sits down on the bed where her daughter is curled up and crying.<p>

She carries an envelope with her she found in her pocket their first evening in this new world. An envelope with a written warning about not, under any circumstances, opening or even showing it to anyone until after the beach. She always thought it was for her, that he would find a way to once more whisk away her daughter. But when his image faded, leaving her daughter sobbing and clutching her stomach, she knew who it really was for.

Her daughter opens the envelope with trembling fingers. Photos spill out along with a letter, which her daughter snatches up instantly. Brown eyes rove over the paper, soaking up every word, and at the end, a smile makes the daughter's wet cheeks round and pink.

She doesn't share what the letter says, only reads it one more time before folding it, putting it back into the envelope, and tucking it into the breast pocket of her pyjama shirt.

They settle down together in the bed, backs resting against the headboard, to go through the photos together. A choked sob escapes the mother when she realises that at least half of them are old ones from when her daughter was a child. There are even a few wedding photos in there, of her and her first husband. And one of her hugging her first husband in their first flat, taken their first day there, when everything was new and shiny.

Unbeknownst to Sarah Jane, mother and daughter spend that night bonding over photos and the memories of the men they met at nineteen. The men they lost shortly before their twenty-first birthdays. The similarities bring both smiles and tears. And hope as well. Because if the mother, years later and against all odds, found her husband again, maybe the daughter will too.

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><p>THE END<p> 


End file.
